The Five Most Exciting AFLW Players According To An Expert

Eating disorders, juggling family and work with footy and shedding 30kgs just to get a start; Sam Lane introduces us to the rising stars of the AFL Women's league.

Mar 22, 2018 4:14am

By Jenna Clarke

Samantha Lane is one of our greatest sports journalists, having covered the Olympic Games and the Tour de France three times. But it's her work behind-the-scenes and on our screens for the AFL women's league which is truly groundbreaking.

Ahead of this weekend's AFLW grand final, Lane gives ELLE Australia the inside scoop on the players to watch over the coming seasons of this hugely popular sport.

KATIE BRENNAN, Western Bulldogs captain

Katie Brennan has overcome heartbreaking injury setbacks throughout her career. Other roadblocks include a suspension during the 2018 season which she failed to have overturned this week in order for her to lead the Western Bulldogs into this Saturday's grand final as team captain. But in truth football injuries don't compare to personal challenges Brennan has confronted in her life, like caring for her mother and healing herself from an eating disorder.

Meeting Brennan today without knowing these backstories you'd never pick it. She's a highly self-motivated and successful businesswoman running a fitness training business while juggling the world's biggest water bottle to keep herself hydrated.

"I hate the word average. I'm obsessed with doing something with life because it's so short. Sometimes I feel like an alien because of that, but more and more I've also learnt to be okay with it," Brennan tells Lane in her new book, Roar.

DAISY PEARCE, Melbourne captain

Daisy Pearce was the poster-player for the AFL Women's League well before the AFLW had even started. Now a star player of the competition and Melbourne's captain, she can admit now that the expectations that accompanied her high profile were burdensome, and that she was wrestling privately with so much more than most knew. Like a health scare, and the weight of feeling she'd bitten off more than she could chew. A true professional, Pearce has prioritised. Remarkably, between her playing, ambassadorial and broadcasting duties she is still signing up to midwifery shifts.

"I'm a very low-maintenance, physically active but relaxed-in-personality bogan. I don't take myself too seriously. I can have a lot of fun and not subscribe to too many of life's pressures. I just see myself as a girl from the bush," Pearce says.

TAYLA HARRIS, Carlton

Whatever you do, don't box Tayla Harris because she's bound to burst out of the parametres. A Queenslander, she was drafted to the Brisbane Lions for the first AFLW season as a prize recruit and marquee player. The fearless key forward played in a grand final for the Lions but, in a major off-season move, then jumped ship to join Carlton. Why? Because Harris wanted to live in Melbourne.

She loves Rihanna and boxing. She hates salad and coffee. Well, she used to hate salad and coffee. Now she's experimenting. In the life of Tayla Harris, it's as if everything is one big experiment. And as if anything is possible.

"I always do random stuff. And I like whatever's going on that day. I just do whatever, I don't care," Harris says.

SARAH PERKINS, Adelaide

One of the last players recruited to the first AFLW but one of the first remembered, Sarah Perkins was overlooked by seven clubs before Adelaide's coach Bec Goddard saw something others didn't. The short version of what happened next is that Perkins became an inaugural AFLW premiership player and Goddard the first premiership coach.

To get there Perkins committed to a fitness regimen that saw her shed in excess of 30 kilograms. Through this she endured hurtful derision online and, in some shocking instances, was ridiculed face-to-face. Community-minded and made of strong stuff, Perkins has responded in the best practical fashion imaginable: by kicking on.

"When I'd watch women's footy I'd see women of different sizes, different shapes, and I just knew that it was something for everyone. I guess that gave me a sense that you could really belong in a football club," Perkins says.

DARCY VESCIO, Carlton

One of the most gifted footballers in the AFLW, Darcy Vescio set the league alight with an unforgettable four-goal performance on opening night in 2017. Close to 25,000 people filled Carlton's Princes Park, spectators were locked out, and more than a million that tuned in on television saw her do it. But that's just a smidgen of Vescio's rich background. Of Chinese and Italian heritage Vescio was born and bred in the country Victorian town of Wangaratta. She moved to Melbourne for study and, after a couple of sidesteps, became a household name Australian Rules footballer overnight.

At the Carlton footy club nowadays this luminary player is also employed as an in-house graphic designer.

Fit, feminist and an outrageous creative and football talent, Vescio is all this and rising.

"I like dancing on the line of what people might find comfortable and what people might not," Vescio says.

The AFLW Grand Final will take place on Saturday, March 24 between Western Bulldogs v Brisbane Lions at Princes Park, Carlton and will be broadcast on Seven.